Despite the fact that Elop announced a new round of job cuts and warned on weaker profit earlier this month, Siilasmaa said he had the board's full confidence. The Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat quoted Siilasmaa as saying that it was thanks to Elop that Nokia had been able to get new phones with new operating systems faster into the market than ever before.

Nokia's shares have fallen over 80 percent since Elop became CEO in 2010 as the company lost cash from abandoning its ancient symbian operating system. Elop came from Microsoft and negotiated a deal where Nokia would peddle Windows machines on behalf of Steve Ballmer.